#ReportingToRemember the panchayat, local political parties, the family of the accused, and a local girl’s college in Hisar, Haryana for blaming & shaming a Dalit rape survivor.

On September 9, 2012, a 15-year-old Dalit girl from the Dabra village in the Hisar district of Haryana was on her way to her relative’s house in a nearby village, when she was abducted by a group of 8 to 12 men who then raped her and filmed the act. The victim gave a statement where she said that 12 people were involved though 4 of them were never named in the FIR or on media reports, and the victim believes that the police excluded their names in order to protect them. According to some reports, she was raped by 7 men while 5 others stood guard.

At least 8 of them were reported as belonging to the Jat caste. The victim belonged to the Chamar caste. Jats are the dominant caste in the area, with their population being 800 households, whereas Chamars make up only 150 households and are largely economically dependent on the Jats.

The men took her to a field on the road, fed her intoxicants, and then raped her. They filmed the act, threatening to release it if she reported the violence to anyone. Although she was silenced by this threat, they began to sell the video, reportedly for 200 rupees. When her father found out about it, he committed suicide by consuming pesticide. According to some reports, she revealed what had happened to her mother who had noticed that she had become withdrawn and asked her about it repeatedly, and her father was told that the videos would be released when he was planning to file a police complaint. According to other reports, he found out about it when a co-worker at the house where he worked as a gardener, showed him the video of the rape that had already been leaked.

It was only after her father’s suicide that the case gained attention and local activists began to protest, and the police started to pursue the case. By this time, the accused were absconding. The police delayed the investigation at various stages and harassed the victim and her family. They picked up men at random, asking her to identify them, and when she refused to identify them as her rapists, they would taunt her saying things such as “if this is not the right guy, you go and find them yourself”. They intentionally omitted the caste of the perpetrators from the police reports, instead attempting to implicate Dalit youth, including the victim’s brother. Meanwhile, the family continued to face threats from the panchayat, local political parties such as the Indian National Lok Dal (INLD) and the kin of the accused. The police finally made 11 arrests, though only 4 were convicted. Those who were convicted were also released on bail.

After the victim enrolled in a local girls college in Hisar, a sister of one of the accused who was studying at the same college revealed her identity, following which she began to face harassment from her peers. In November 2013, she wrote to the National Commission for Scheduled Castes, saying upper-caste students at her college were taunting her and using filthy language against her. Her complaints to the principal went unheard and no action was taken against the harassers. While she was promised free treatment at local hospitals, she was always made to pay, ignored, and humiliated. Around the same time Jyoti Singh was taken to Singapore for treatment, in her letter to the National Commission for Scheduled Castes, the victim wrote that she was being refused treatment even at the local nursing home.

After she was interviewed by reporters from an Australian TV channel, she was further harassed by the District Collector, her college principal, and the Chief Medical Officer, who declared her mentally ill to discredit her. The victim’s brother too, was forced to drop out of the Industrial Training Institute (ITI) where he was studying due to taunts and humiliation after his sister’s rape and father’s death.